Companies that were once Aussie have been quietly bought by foreign interests who have consciously avoided press as best they could as long as they could, and then just blended in as a matter of fact. If the local product (or service) is approximately equal or better and the ‘Australia tax’ not much I try to prefer local, but in many cases I find ‘Australian’ is directly or indirectly foreign owned or they demand a premium price for an ordinary or inferior product. Like the US before us modern business is rolling out products that tinker around the edges rather than establish new ground, and often just finding new bits to charge for.
Since so much of our manufactured product is imported product differential is becoming more about the smiling faces selling it, the prices they set and where it is shipped from. As for payroll, a domestically owned and a foreign owned company both hire staff; profits figuratively buy yachts for the owners, and do I care if James Packer, Clive Palmer, Dick Smith, Jeff Bezos, or Jack Ma (et al) add some more zeros to their accounts - none to very few of them will (or could if they wanted to) spend more of their wealth than they do so it becomes all about account balances. Therein lies one of the problems.
/cynicism
